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What He Saw At The Terrorist Attack

He was supposed to be in the restaurant attacked by Al Qaeda. A reader tells his story
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Here is something quite remarkable. It’s a letter from the American reader living in France who comments on this blog under the name “Du Bartas”. He was present for an Islamist terrorist attack in Africa earlier this year, one that killed 16. His account of that drama is gripping. I present it to you with his permission:

You being a journalist, I thought you might be interested to know about something that happened a few months ago but received relatively little coverage. Do you remember that story of a terrorist attack that took place in March of this past year in Grand Bassam, Ivory Coast? About 20 persons were killed and more injured: most of the victims were Ivorians as well as a handful of Europeans. The 3 terrorists were from AQMI (Al-Qaeda in the Maghreb) sent to attack the beachside restaurants; Christians, children and adults, were reportedly singled out and shot dead. It is a wonder that the Islamist terrorists didn’t kill more people. About 500 meters north of the beachside restaurants, on the main road leading from the city center, there was a busload of American university officials, about 25 or so, when the attack started at a quarter past noon. I should know: I was one of them.

In addition, about a kilometer away, there was an assistant secretary of a U.S. federal department, the head of our delegation, who was at the home of the mayor of Grand Bassam. I sometimes wondered whether or not we were (part of) the intended target if only because we should have been at the restaurant, the one that got attacked, at noon according to our itinerary plans. We were delayed, however, and eventually sidetracked to go visit the national costume museum. I wasn’t happy about this decision to visit the museum: I was hungry and wanted to see the beach. But up we strolled the front steps of the museum located in the old 19th century residence of the governor general from colonial times. Standing on the veranda-like porch of this old mansion with nary a costume to look at, we heard the first clack clack go off from what sounded like the beach area. I don’t know guns and I rarely hear guns fired, so my first thought when I heard the noise was that it reminded me of noises I had heard when I was in Washington, DC, one summer a long time ago. It is the sort of noise where you tell yourself they’re firecrackers but you know it’s really gunfire. But you keep trying to convince yourself that it’s just firecrackers.

The gunshots kept sounding off, though, by the beach: the firecracker hypothesis was discarded. I never heard any rat-tat-tat-tat of machine gunfire spitting out bullets, just single shot noises: Kalashnikovs (for some reason, I knew that). Standing on the veranda looking south over the road leading from the museum to the sea, the beach and the restaurants, we saw a mass of people running towards us, locals panicking trying to get away from the gunfire which kept sounding off, pap, pap.

My thoughts then next ran to wonder who was doing this: gangsters from the rough parts of Abidjan? Political agitation against President Ouattara? I was scouring my mind for causes, pushing to the back of it the most evident: this was a terrorist attack. And then: KKKAAAKKK! a shot went off. It was so loud, the loudness hurt my ears. In unison, the dozen or so of us now standing inside ducked down and booked it to the back of the building. I didn’t hear the bullet whizz by or hear it slap a wall. I don’t know who fired the shot or from where, my instincts and that of my peers was that we were shot at. It sounded VERY close. We crouched down, ducking for cover and running to the backend of the building to the rear porch veranda and down the stairs leading out to behind the museum building. I don’t remember hearing any another gunfire being fired at us at that moment. We did continue to hear the single shot fires going off clack clack clack , in the distance.

We hung out behind the museum building for maybe 15 or 20 minutes: there was an unfinished building of some sort and another building, apparently abandoned, looked like an annex. There may have been other members of the delegation who were out in the front of the museum. Somebody remembered that one of our group, from a California college, had actually gone to the beachside restaurant to go rest in the hotel room she had reserved there. In the group, there were not only university officials like myself but also officials from the US government and from the US Embassy Abidjan who were in charge of the tour logistics, chaperoning us, etc. We were dressed business casual, some very casual, whereas the government and embassy officials (all women) were in business attire: heels, dress skirts but one or two in casual attire. As for us university folk, we’re all kind of geeky-looking anyway. The group as a whole was about 2/3 women and about 1/3 minorities (Hispanic, black, immigrant, etc.) for anyone who’s counting. When we were running to the back of the museum and down the backstairs, I thought to myself: my day has changed in a big way. I like traveling and I like adventure but I didn’t like what was happening. I wasn’t very happy with the idea of hanging out behind the museum, either. I wanted to run, run, run in the opposite direction.

After the Paris attacks, the French government published a brochure on what to do during a terrorist attack: hide behind thick walls, or just run in the opposite direction. But there, we were staying put in the back of the museum. I stayed there because I didn’t want to leave the group. Eventually, one of the embassy officials, a young lady who must be in her mid-twenties had called all of us into the abandoned annex building. There were two rooms, both empty with weak ceiling lights. The ambiance of the group was good: we were all showing concern for each other, making sure everyone was alright, some trying to make light of the situation, keep morale up. We were strangers who had just been together for only the past week. Aside from the couple of Ivorian staffers from the embassy, we were all Americans, acting the way Americans do in most situations: just be a bit smiley polite and keep to small talk. But we were all sort of dazed as to what was going on. Who wouldn’t be?

The group dynamics seemed to have set in: the embassy officials were in charge, attempting to make contact with the US embassy or the State Dept., or whomever, and get us out of there. Everybody else knew that our task was just to keep our shit together. Locals would come in to the room where we were hiding, in order to rest and to relax, but mainly to hide, too. The gunfire was still going on, in the distance. I don’t know when it stopped. Now, you have to understand, we had no idea what was going on. Nobody did. The locals who would come in and then leave the room were recounting contradictory stories: some said it was just one crazy guy on the beach, others said it was a group of criminals attacking and robbing the hotel. None of the locals said anything about terrorists, and I don’t think any thought to do so.

So we hunkered down there, all of us corralled in one of the rooms in this sort of basement of the annex building behind the national costume museum. We turned the lights off and waited in the dark, waiting until it passed over, or waiting until whomever it was on the other end of the phone line with the embassy official said it was safe to go outside. We kept telling everybody to keep their cell-phones turned off – no noise, no lights! We didn’t want to get discovered! Now, again, I was thinking: I would rather have run away, far from there, because there I am in a dark room, in this dark basement with one door as the exit hoping that the gunmen don’t find us. I didn’t feel terrified. A few months previous, I felt terror watching, helplessly, the news unfold during the Paris attacks. But here, I felt as if (or nourished the illusion) that I still had some control over the course of things, and this control depended on my two legs getting me the hell out of that room if the gunmen found us hiding there. Which, when you think of it, is a silly thought. There was only one door to get out, and if a gunman came and found us, I would necessarily have to run through him, which was actually my plan. Maybe I’d take him out, too. In any case, my plan was to book it out of there. The idea of just sitting there like a dead duck just waiting to get riddled with bullets lined up against the wall wasn’t acceptable to me.

For about an hour or an hour and a half, or maybe two hours (I don’t know how long we were there, time stood still), I was crouched down like in a starting block position for the 100meter dash waiting to spring out of there in case the gunmen found where we were. I must’ve been frozen in that position for at least an hour, my eyes transfixed on the doorway I could hardly see. I heard some sobs, some people were crying. The thought that my one-year old boy wouldn’t remember me quickly crossed my mind but I immediately put it out of my mind before turning my focus back again on the doorway and how I would run out of there if we were found out. So there was a moment, which must’ve lasted for the better part of an hour, when I leveled with myself saying that this is it, old boy, your life was in the balance and your chances were 50/50. It is a very…sobering feeling.

Whether in deed and in fact this was the case is beside the point: again, we had no idea what was going on outside. Every single creaking sound of footsteps on the floor of the room above us could’ve been a gunman, so we all thought. There was no sound in the room for moments on end, no exhaling of breath, whenever we heard somebody walking above. I don’t remember thinking of God or praying. I remember feeling concerned as to whether or not I was doing whatever it was I supposed to be doing (being quiet, making sure others were okay, etc.): my mind was focused on figuring out what my duty was, my acts, and on my body’s movements, not abstract concepts. As I said, speaking for myself, I guess I indulged in some fantasy-thinking in order to attenuate the thought that my life was at stake. I pushed aside the idea that these were Islamist terrorists and I told myself I would run like a bat out of hell if they (whoever they were) came and found us hiding out in that basement.

Eventually, we did leave our hiding hole. News came in through the embassy official’s cell phone that it was safe to leave the building, and we were to make it back to the bus. The bus driver, a nice Ivorian fellow, never left the bus. He didn’t leave us: a deed for which the whole group felt ever grateful. And I can assure you, he had every reason to run away since I imagine the bus was in the perimeter at risk of being hit by gunfire. If he had left, well, who else could drive a bus?

Plus, there was such commotion outside in the streets at that point, it was incredible. As I didn’t know what was going on, I began wondering whether this wasn’t an uprising or a coup d’état. The streets were full of people. The embassy and government officials leading the group were tense and it appeared urgent to get out of there as soon as possible because, even if the initial gunfire seemed over, who was to say there wouldn’t be more? After much confusion, the bus was eventually directed to go to the home of the mayor of Grand Bassam who we had met earlier that morning and whose long, drawn-out meeting ended up making us late for lunch. The assistant secretary was at the mayor’s home because there was to be a luncheon for him and Ivorian political grandees. The tents and catering were there on the back lawn of the mayor’s home but instead of the hometown grandees chowing down on some good fare, they let us, this haggard group of university and government/embassy officials, feast on it. It was a very fine lunch, French cuisine with good wine.

What a weird day this was. I felt so bad for this courteous mayor who welcomed us into his house. At that point, the event was on the news. I heard France 24 had begun reporting an attack, soon to be called a terrorist attack.  Of course it was. I could stop kidding myself.

The terrorist attack took place the last day of the delegation’s mission to Africa and pretty much everybody had a flight to catch later that day, except those who were planning to stay a day or two more at the beachside hotel/restaurant in Grand Bassam. Indeed, we asked, what happened to our colleague at the restaurant’s hotel? We were not to leave the mayor’s home until all the group was together. Security officers from the embassy I suppose, were sent to go find her and bring her back so that she could be with the rest of us. I found this singularly noteworthy. I have heard of the ethos of US military units not leaving fellow soldiers behind: that they’ll go fetch and save their buddies if they can. Here, we were a delegation organized by a US government department, one of us was lost and separated from the group and we wouldn’t move until that colleague was found and united with us (she was not hurt but she was very shaken).

The US takes care of its own. I cannot commend enough the embassy officials, the government officials and the under-secretary involved in this mission who were responsible for getting us to safety. They were very professional very considerate. The exfiltration, if that’s the term, was being directed from the State Department’s special crisis situation office (I think) in Washington. It was kind of odd to think that the White House knew about us, about our situation.

The delegation of university officials boarded the bus again after lunch and was taken to the US embassy. We were escorted by the embassy’s black SUVs, four in the front of the bus, four in the back, as we headed to the embassy. It was an awesome sight to behold the means that were deployed to keep us safe. Not awesome as in cool, I mean awesome as in likely to provoke awe and fear.

On the way back to Abidjan, the convoy drove on the other side of the road from Grand Bassam to the US embassy. Which is to say that all other car drivers heading in our direction had to make way for us. Far up ahead, I saw the first SUV of our convoy hit head-on a taxi car that hadn’t gotten out of the way fast enough. I saw the occupants, the taximan, a woman and a child get out: they appeared okay but it was a sorry sight to see. This blew one of the delegation member’s nerves: all this special treatment to get us to safety and we almost end up killing local people! Who else but us – a group of Americans – were receiving such treatment?!

This is not a boast. Rather I mean to underline something which is immediately obvious for everybody except Americans and that is that the US has the potential to deploy a lot of power, abroad, in other people’s countries, and this for the sole benefit of its own citizens. We were taken to US embassy. It felt good to be there: the place seems unassailable. I didn’t feel like I was in just an office building (which it is), but also that I was within the safety of US territory (which it is, too). The US embassy dispatched staff, local and American, to corral all the delegation’s members and make sure everybody got on their plane back home. I discovered how heavy those black SUV’s car doors are (they’re wicked heavy).

Always the last one to leave a party, I was the last one of the delegation to leave Abidjan as my flight was in the wee hours of the morning heading straight back up north from where I came. I must’ve waited in the lobby a few hours, I had been dozing off losing track of time. As I got up to go to the gate, I saw that the US embassy staffer, an Ivorian, who had accompanied me to the security clearance a few hours before was still there, discretely standing by and looking over me. I left Abidjan feeling lucky and thankful.

When I started this note I had all the divisions in the US, especially in academia, in mind. I don’t see the link anymore and besides it would be inappropriate to dwell upon them. I don’t get and I don’t really relate to what is transpiring on US college campuses, and in society as a whole. I am used to the American experience abroad where such differences, in foreigners’ eyes, are secondary compared to other things such as America the ideal dream, or America the martial superpower. All that I described above and that was done during this brief, critical, episode was done for Americans regardless of our beliefs, opinions and race. But these enormous means were rolled out and deployed only for us, and not for others, because we are American citizens. I don’t know how that fact sits with many Americans but that is what happened: I was there and that is what I saw.

 

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